IMF Promotes Better Economic Data in Africa
In April 2010 the IMF’s Statistics Department, with the support of the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID), launched a five-year initiative to help 23 African countries improve the quality and dissemination of economic statistics. Timely and high-frequency data are critical to helping both the private and public sectors make better economic decisions.
Based on a modular approach to assist groups of countries with similar needs, the initiative focused one of its modules on helping seven countries (Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda) to produce and disseminate quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) data. This initiative is being implemented in close collaboration with the IMF’s regional center for east Africa, or East AFRITAC.
Early results
By the end of 2011, three of these countries—Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda—had released quarterly GDP data to the public for the first time. In addition, Zanzibar began publishing quarterly GDP data, completing already published data by mainland Tanzania.
These earlier-than-expected results were welcomed by policymakers and other users in the business, financial, and international communities, because this kind of information provides much more timely indicators of economic activity than the previous annual statistics. This, in turn, provides a more accurate picture of the economic situation in each country at any given point in time.
The other countries participating in this module released some limited quarterly GDP data—mostly quarterly GDP at constant prices—and are working on expanding the series to compile quarterly GDP data at both current and constant prices, as well as improve the quality of all the data.
Speaking of the experience of Uganda, Tom Richardson, IMF Senior Resident Representative in Kampala noted Uganda’s Bureau of Statistics began compiling a quarterly GDP series several years ago, with significant support from the IMF, both from headquarters and from the statistics advisor at the IMF’s technical assistance center in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. “They started to circulate the results informally within the government in 2010, and last fall began to disseminate the series to the public. In doing so, the Bureau of Statistics was responding to demand for higher frequency data on the...
To continue reading
Request your trial